Trauma Center shooting games has come a long way since it’s earlier DS days, and New Blood is no exception to this trend. While maintaining the fundamental ideas that made Trauma Center a great new release to begin with, it has developed the game to include more features and a deeper storyline which appeals to both new gamers and veterans.
For those new to Trauma Center, the game consists of the player taking on the role of a surgeon in which you are to use various surgical equipment and perform operations. Operations vary greatly, sometimes it’s removing glass fragments from a patient, removing tumours, or restructuring broken bones. The game flows in a series of difference challenges, in a linear storyline in which different situations occur which require operations.
The first noticeable thing about Trauma Center is the fact that you can choose which protagonist you wish to play as, and then you have the ability to go back and do it with a different surgeon. This means there are separate ratings, so in theory you’d have much more to do once you have finished the game, because you could do it with the other surgeons. As well as this, the more hardcore gamers will be pleased to know that the ranking system is still in place, so to complete it 100% you can still go back and perfect your scores. The new online ranking system also let’s you check up on how you are doing in comparison to other players.
A very noticeable and welcome addition is the two player mode. This means instead of taking turns you can both have a go, which is good if you are playing it with a friend. It doesn’t however affect one player mode at all, so if you want to stop and play it alone halfway through, you can do that.
A slight difference, which could be either taken as good or bad, is the seemingly increased difficulty of New Blood in comparison to Second Opinion. I personally think this is a good idea, and even Easy mode can get pretty challenging at times, which prolongs the games life so you don’t just breeze through it. Some may argue that it is unfair for the casual players to the fighting games, but there is still leeway on the Easy mode for those that aren’t so used to Trauma Center.
Trauma Center : New Blood also makes better use of the Wii Mote, with different actions to be used a lot more than they were in Second Opinion. There is also a lot more diversity of cases, many different things to do so it isn’t just more of the same. As I said earlier, however, it still retains the positive elements of the first Trauma Center, but it just expands them.
All in all, Trauma Center : New Blood is an excellent game, particularly for those who are already fans of the series. It does have it’s minor flaws, one of which includes cheesy American voice acting, but for some of the more impatient gamers it does help break up large paragraphs of text which is regularly seen in games like Trauma Center. The artwork remains as good as ever with a nice array of characters and facial expressions, and views of different scenery. If you haven’t played any other Trauma Center, I recommend having a go on those first before you attempt it’s more challenging counterpart.
Games Trauma Center : New Blood
